There is a reason that women, in particular mothers, can not become successful spies or secret holders of any kind. If they are captured all their captors would need to do is leave a crying baby near them for an extended period and I promise you those secrets will tumble out.
Over all Jack is a good baby. He has bad days, bad moments but over all I really can not complain – out of the 3 kids he is definitely the easiest. BUT every afternoon from around 16h30 until David gets home (or he passes out) Jack starts screaming and by screaming I mean just that.
Every day around this time I try and put him down for a nap because he will usually have been awake 90 min+ and so in need of a nap. Every day he screams in the cot. I put the dummy in. I rock him. I gripe water the dummy. He screams.
I do this every day in the hope that one day he GETS IT and actually closes his eyes – we have been doing it for about 2 weeks now and we are no closer to my desired result. So usually an hour into it I pick him up and the kids and I play pass the parcel until David gets home.
By the time David gets home I am frazzled because there is only so much crying a person can take before you consider life as a bag lady living in the quiet mountains of the Cape or open plains of the high veld.
Today was worse than normal though which is so odd because he has had such a good day but the minute Josephine went to get dressed to leave he opened his mouth and howled and howled and howled for 30 minutes non-stop. I eventually put him in the bath where he calmed down and then promptly fell asleep when I put his nappy on.
I cried! Really I did.
Because there is nothing more upsetting than a child screaming like that – its not a sick cry – its a “I have no idea why I am crying” cry and like my friend Tash says it cuts you deep inside. By 17h00 today I would have sold my dignity if someone said they could make him stop crying.
So if I was a spy the entire country would now be at risk.
Oh and throw in sleep deprivation and I will be giving away everyone else’s secrets too.
Having a baby has to be one of the biggest emotional, psychological and physically challenging things EVER.
For an interesting read on this check here – thanks Gina 🙂
How did you survive those early months?
11 Responses
oh baby, I hear you.
It’s awful.
have you tried putting him in the wrap?
(((((hugs))))))
Some of the early months are a blur. She was NOT an easy Baby and she screamed for hours on end and she got upset so easily. Some days I ended up crying with her, which probably upset her more. And some days I tied her to my chest and worked with her just lying there on. The contact made up both feel better and she’d fall asleep.
Um. I didn’t. It drove me to PND and led me to make a decision: NO MORE BABIES EVER!
If there is one sound that I can’t stand it is the sound of a crying baby. I HATE it!
It did help a bit to put Child2 in a wrap though it wasn’t always practical to do this – especially when I needed to cook or whatever.
My friend used one of those bouncy seats and swore by it. Not sure if you have something like that.
Hang in there honey. This too shall pass.x
Ava also had a very specific crying time… from 11pm to 3am. It nearly killed me! I remember one night Walter actually asking me, in all seriousness, if we couldn’t give her back because he just didn’t think he was cut out to be a dad. It was that bad.
Does Jack not maybe have colic? As soon as Ava was diagnosed with colic and we started treating it the midnight screaming stopped?
Hang in there!
Zoe was a colic baby and those few months at home were the hardest months physically and emotionally. I had our neighbours coming knocking on the door one afternoon asking me if I needed a break. She said she was home most afternoons and the unrelenting crying made her feel so bad for me because she had a colic baby herself. I don’t miss those days, I was a wreck!
What did work ~ Gospel music, dancing, running around with her while playing soccer with Ethan and bath time.
Sweetie, this is called evening colic and is due to too much sensory stimulation during the day. The Princess had it from about month 4 to 6 and it was totally exhausting. They do grow out of it though and what does help is to read Babysense again and to stimulate a bit less during the day. She cried non stop from5 top 7 or when she passed out every night. We used to pass her between the two of us. It was terrible. What did help was to go quieter from about 4 – noise mostly. Some baroque music did seem to help and Resq remedy.
Laura, another thing that really helped me during those early months was to do the cooking in the morning. I would drop Child1 at school and come home and make dinner(or at least prepare it so I could just pop it into the oven in the evenings) so that it could just be reheated in the evenings. At least it kept my hands free.
Also, like Cat says, try to have as little noise in the evenings as possible. I KNOW that this is difficult if you have other kids but it does make a difference.
((hugs))x
Laura!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Reading this took me back to those dreaded early days, something I never want to repeat.
i will gladly have a 1 year old baby but those early days nearly killed me.
Cat’s given good advice – for me, it was a total blur.
That time is called suicide hour (hours?) for a reason.
Big hugs to you
PS yes, I am underestimating my kids 🙂
Mieka was also a crying baby, and I think it had something to do with infant dyschezia (poops are hurting)… I just knew that it would pass… and it did!! My mantra for those times: This too will pass!!
Good luck! It is the worst kind of torture!
I remember my knucklehead screaming like that from 6pm to 10pm… I still thank my lucky stars that I still lived with my parents at the time because I had a lot of help.